o/'^Ae jFam?7?/ o/'Burmanniaceae. 375 



nature, as it was only in seed after dehiscence, and it was not until I received 

 last year two specimens of the former species preserved in spirits, together 

 with a drawing of the plant in its living state, that I was enabled to ascertain 

 its true relations. It appears to be seldom more than 2 inches high, with a 

 knotty tuberous root, from which spring numerous fibrillse, that seem to pro- 

 pagate themselves by stoloniferous offsets. The stem is slender, erect, some- 

 what flexuose, striated, colourless, and hyaline. The perianth, arising out of 

 2 or 4 shor-t bracts, is gibbosely globular and pyriform, 4 lines in diameter 

 in its widest part, somewhat fleshy, transparent, and of a delicate rosy hue on 

 the more convex face, white and almost translucid on the opposite more con- 

 tracted side, and is marked with 6 slender longitudinal lines, corresponding 

 with the segments of the border. The sepals are somewhat triangular, thrown 

 back, of a dull yellow colour at the base, transparent toward the apex, and 

 about a line in length. The petals are slender, subulately terete, 6-7 lines 

 long, slightly curved, irregularly patent, and of a pinkish hue ; in aestivation 

 they are spirally coiled together, and concealed within the sepals, whose mar- 

 gins slightly overlap each other : inside of the petals there is a raised edge of 

 a bright chrome yellow, within which the mouth is nearly closed by a flat 

 annular depressed rim, of the same but somewhat duller hue. The stamens 

 derive their origin from beneath the annular rim, and are pendent against the 

 inner wall of the perianth : they are quite free and equal ; the filaments are 

 broad at their origin, then somewhat contracted, and soon again widen into 

 a broad petaloid expansion, with a somewhat truncated apex, having a broad 

 eraarginature in the centre, between 2 prominent thickened globular lobes, 

 from the sides of which spring as many lateral, subulate, recurved, sigmoid 

 appendages, which lie parallel with the filament, and are somewhat shorter; 

 the anthers are oval, comparatively very small, consisting of 2 parallel cells, 

 bursting longitudinally, laterally connected together at one extremity, slightly 

 divaricated at the other, and fixed by their back near the apex of the fila- 

 ments below the emarginatuiHi, being attached upon the inner face, so that 

 their aspect is always towards the tube of the perianth : they seem therefore 

 to be extrorse, although, if the filaments were not retroflexed, they would in 

 reality appear in the usual introrse position. The ovarium is inferior, some- 

 what turbinate, and crowned with a thin conical disc; it is 1-celled, with 3 



VOL. XX. 3 D 



